Fatal Judgment: An Andy Hayes Mystery

Judge Laura Porter fiercely guarded her privacy, and never more so than during her long-running--and long in the past--affair with disgraced quarterback-turned-private investigator Andy Hayes. Now she’s missing, disappeared just hours after she calls Andy out of the blue explaining she’s in trouble and needs his help. A trail of clues leads Andy to a central Ohio swamp whose future lies in the judge’s hands as she weighs a lawsuit pitting environmentalists against developers. Soon Hayes encounters the case of another missing person, a young man who vanished without a trace in a different swamp two counties away. As he looks for links between the two disappearances, Hayes is led from Columbus to Cleveland, unearthing a history of secrets and betrayals threatening not just the judge but her family as well. Along the way, Hayes is forced to confront a newly strained relationship with his older son, now a budding football star himself, and revisit his tumultuous days as a Cleveland Browns quarterback and the gridiron failures that haunt him to this day. In partnership with a cop on her own quest for justice, Hayes rushes to find the judge, and the truth, before it’s too late.

Andrew Welsh-Huggins is the Shamus, Derringer, and International Thriller Writers award-nominated author of the Andy Hayes private eye series; author of the standalone crime novel The End of the Road; and editor of the Columbus Noir anthology. His short mystery fiction has appeared in multiple magazines, including Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, and in many anthologies, including The Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2021;Groovy Gumshoes: Private Eyes in the Psychedelic Sixties; and Paranoia Blues: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Paul Simon. His nonfiction book, No Winners Here Tonight, is the definitive history of the death penalty in Ohio.